Clicking starter motor = battery failure

Thought I'd share my experience today of a rather sudden battery failure on my Rover 45 diesel. The wife was fortunate to be parked in the supermarket car park near my office when the car decided not to start. I opened the bonnet and when turning the ignition there was a rapid clicking sound from the starter motor. Suspecting a starter motor failure I got it recovered home - a bump start was not feasible.

On my Dad's advice I put a multi-meter on the battery. 12v seemed normal, but when attempting to start it dropped to 5.5v which seemed very low. I managed to get hold of a new battery before the shops shut and installed it in 5 mins. Car burst into life on first turn and has been fine since. The old battery still had Rover stickers on it and could well be the original - so 12 years old and almost 100k miles on it! In hindsight I should have checked it sooner but there were no symptoms.

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